The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com
Hope Carroll is a fourth-year communications undergraduate student in the Honors College at the University of Maine who grew up in Portland. These are her views and do not express those of the University of Maine System or the University of Maine. Hope provides this column at the invitation of the Maine chapter of the Scholars Strategy Network, which brings together scholars across the country to address public challenges and their policy implications. Members’ columns appear in the BDN every other week.
Wabanaki history is ingrained across Maine and has deep rooted cultural relationships with major natural landmarks that many of us see everyday. However, there is a concerning gap surrounding the important aspects of our state’s rich Wabanaki history and what little many students learn about it in Maine schools.
Wabanaki studies need to be consistently incorporated into all Maine school districts. According to a 2022 report done by the Abbe Museum, the Maine ACLU, the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission and the Wabanaki Alliance, the Wabanaki studies law passed by Maine in 2001 is not appropriately enforced across the state.
The law “requires schools to teach Maine K–12 students about Wabanaki territories, economic systems, cultural systems, governments, and political systems, as well as the Wabanaki tribes’ relationships with local, state, national, and international governments,” the report says.
The Portland public school system recently incorporated a Wabanaki studies program into its curriculum. This will hopefully be a good example for other districts across Maine and encourage them to do the same.
Teaching Wabanaki studies will help children gain a better understanding of the state. In time, this can help them develop a closer relationship with the land and our responsibility to ensure that it is cared for and treated with respect.
“Through traditional stories representing the terrestrial and aquatic systems, important [Wabanaki] values are imparted that safeguard culturally significant resources from overuse and ensure the persistence of the people and culture,” says Natalie Michelle, interdisciplinary studies and research assistant of native environmental studies in climate change at the University of Maine.
It is more important than ever that we look to native science as we face irreversible damage to our climate. We must prioritize implementing these ideals early into the educational careers of children so they go on to practice them throughout their lives.
Western science and education has taught the ideals of dominance over nature for centuries. This is reflected in practices that have contributed to the extinction of animals, rises in natural disasters, food and water shortages and the numerous other effects of climate change. Instead of connecting with nature, we are often taught to distance ourselves from the natural world. We are taught to use vague and nonspecific naming tools like “it” to refer to any non-human being.
“We use it to distance ourselves, to set others outside our circle of moral consideration, creating hierarchies of difference that justify our actions — so we don’t feel,” says Robin Kimmerer, professor of environmental and forest biology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.
Kimmerer talks of alternatives to using “it” to put ourselves on the same level as other living beings, recognizing them as relatives by calling them by their name. But she says that this can be difficult for many of her students because they were not taught these alternatives until now.
In my experience growing up in Maine and going to school, I never encountered a class focused on Wabanaki studies until college. I am grateful to have this opportunity now. But it has been difficult for me to implement these new ideals into my thinking toward the land around me because they seem so foreign.
Using the word “foreign” seems wrong when describing ideals that have been used in Maine since long before any of us were here. But Maine schools and communities have an opportunity to change this.
Children who grow up in this state have the right and responsibility to know the history of the land around them. They have the right and responsibility to understand the negative implications of colonization and forced removal of the Wabanaki tribes and how despite horrible historical events, the Wabanaki people have endured and developed their own sovereign structures.
In order to create more inclusive classrooms that incorporate all aspects of our state history and work towards building respectful relationships with Maine land, other communities should follow the exciting example being set in Portland.